Change—Shed—Revolve
|or| Revolution

It is time to listen to your imagination.; the muse is speaking. Can you hear it? Engage in quiet contemplation today. Plan your actions carefully and position yourself accordingly. Watch your back and be open to the force of change. (Bright-Fey 127)

 

Revolution will be trusted on the day of completion. It is very successful, beneficial if correct. Regret vanishes.

Yang 1: For wrapping use the hide of a yellow ox.

Yin 2: When the day has already come, then the movement toward revolution bodes well, without blame.

Yang 3: An expedition bodes ill. Be upright and wary. When talk of revolution works out three times, there is trust.

Yang 4: Regret vanishes. With sincerity, changing the mandate bodes well.

Yang 5: Great people change like a tiger. There is trust before divining.

Yin 6: Superior people change like a leopard, petty people change faces. An expedition bodes ill. It bodes well to be steadfast. (Cleary 308-316)

When the body of a lake recedes beneath the earth, a well is dug from which the water might be brought back up. But to draw water from a well and restore the joy brought by the dried lake requires an unbreakable firmness. A cracked or broken vessel cannot carry the water from the depths to the surface. Likewise, he who draws the bucket must have an eye for the future. He must labor in the now, and perhaps for a long time, before the benefit of his work can touch him parched lips.

That is why Revolution develops from The Well. Fire ascends, water descends; thus does this hexagram simultaneously describe the dying of the old and the birth of the new. Revolution in this context is reform and renewal: it is the recreation of a joyous society and culture after the former culture has become a corrupted husk of its former self. It is likened to a waterwheel, one central hub and outer rim joined many spokes working in concert, one end rising up while the opposing end plunges. The turning occurs as a single, smooth, harmonious action.

But one must not expect large-scale change to be suddenly and universally accepted. Trust must be earned over the course of continuous dialogue and proof by way of consistent action. That is why the I Ching specifies that revolution will be beneficial “if correct.” For the wheel to turn, all the spokes must be traveling along the same course, even if they don’t in a moment seem to be going in the same direction. For the spokes to accord along the same course, they must be convinced that the changes are for the better and not the worse. This cannot be forced. To attempt to impose a new direction on others is like trying to turn a wheel by smashing the protesting spokes with a hammer. One will only break was what previously established. He cannot turn it that way to bring about a new order from the old.

The first Yang is a warning and solution against the aforementioned temptation for force an accord. He is Yang in a Yin position, applying strength at the beginning without the help of a correspondent above. He has an idea about how the culture ought to progress, and his nature is to try to force his notions onto others. The I Ching says what is proper for such folk is to bind themselves with the hide of a yellow ox. Yellow is the color of nobility, and an ox is a docile creature. That is to say that those who have a vivid vision for the future should voluntarily constrain themselves with Yin principles and instead cultivate their personal virtues, letting those above them be the vanguards for the new cultural developments.

The second Yin rests in a balanced position in the body of enlightenment. She corresponds properly with the fifth Yang above, making her cooperative with strong and virtuous leadership while herself being in possession of her own virtues. Her Yin patience is her virtue here. She waits for the great men to lead the new Way instead of taking it upon herself to bring new norms into being—as the first Yang was tempted to do. In this way, by the time the revolution is underway, it is already time for it to occur. There is no pre-emptive initiation. The changes occur as a matter of course.

The third Yang rests at the extreme of enlightenment. He goes too far, too fast, and tries to implement a revolution before its proper timing. Only disaster can follow from this, no matter how brilliant the revolutionary notions seem to the ego. Only once, in open dialogue, the general consensus converges on the necessity and benefit of a revolution can one commence, succeed, and sustain itself as the new set of societal institutions.

The fourth Yang moves from the body of Fire into that of Lake. The new institutions are establishing themselves, and those in low positions of power and influence are strong, upright figures despite their Yin positions. In fact, they are balanced because of their subordination to strong leadership which works in harmony with the wise consensus of the masses. This is evidenced and facilitated by transparency in discourse. The bureaucrats speech and actions align with one another, and this alignment carries over to the will of the leader above who accords with the will of those people below. This is sincerity, through and through, and it is necessary for a revolution to be both successful and good.

Keeping with the motif of openness and honesty, the fifth Yang is likened to a tiger in that its stripes are obvious for anyone to see. People trust such leaders even without means for certainty—in the case of the ancient Chinese, divination; in our circumstances, we might scour a politicians historical record. Being forthright, such a leader earns trust on his merits. That trust is what bonds his subordinates together beneath him. It is what allows the new institutions to sustain themselves once they’ve been erected. Again, sincerity presents itself as an absolutely necessary virtue for a function foundation for society.

But not everybody is in possession of virtue. The Sixth Yin represents those at the fringes who benefit from but who do not really participate in the revolution. These are petty people. Again, virtuous people’s changes and intentions are easy to see as the spots on a leopard. Petty people, however, merely go along with the change outwardly, their hearts unaffected. The I Ching warns against trying to convince people like this to change their minds. They cannot be reached. Instead, one should accept that their superficial compliance is sufficient for the completion of a revolution. Once one has achieved that, then one’s mind ought to be set on conserving the ethics so freshly established.

That is all to say that change cannot be imposed purely from the top down, nor at all in a time during which the people are not receptive to it. Reform of the old should come only after its decadence, and the new to replace it should be based on a consensus of those peoples onto whom the new norms will be imposed. Great men of history are the ones to implement these changes, and the duty of the masses is merely to cultivate their own virtues such that they are ready and able to thrive in the new situation. And once the new institutions have been installed, it is their maintenance which takes precedence. Dissidents ought not be persecuted or purged, and the revolution ought not be perpetual. This is discerning when to start and when to stop.

I Ching; The Book of Changes, with commentaries by Cheng Yi, translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambala Library, 2003.

I Ching: The Book of Changes; An authentic Taoist translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2006.